


hope(lessly devoted to you)

by HolisticObsessor (Talraven)



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: All the bad stuff are in the past tense., Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 00:57:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16692334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talraven/pseuds/HolisticObsessor
Summary: Blackwing did awful things to Dirk, things he believes his soulmate should never have to deal with. It wouldn't befairto them. No one deserved abrokensoulmate.Luckily for him, he's always wrong about everything, and he's definitely wrong about this.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flightinflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/gifts).



> The lovely [flightinflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame) requested hurt/comfort and I maked this. Sorry I couldn't put in more of the other stuff, but err, I kind of went off. In the wrong direction. As I tend to do. Ahaha. (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄ Hope you like it, anyway! Also, I am _deeply_ sorry for the lack of Mona. My Mona ran off to be a Christmas tree even though I told her it's still November, but, well. She's too excited?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For context:
> 
> 1- This is set loosely in the Loveless anime world. _Very_ loosely. All you need to know is that everyone in this universe is born with cat ears and a tail, which they lose when they have sex for the first time. Everyone who still has their cat characteristics are considered 'children', because of this. Other than that, there's nothing else here tied to the anime. I just wanted to make Dirk hurt more? I am awful, I know.
> 
> 2- Also a mishmash of soulmate AU. Except, like, different in the sense that a pair of soulmates will be born with a shared name on a part of their body, called a soulmark. Not everyone has a 'soulmark'. It's not a defining factor in someone's life. Basically treated like having a unique birthmark.
> 
> 3- Dirk was 16 when the off-screen rape occurred. It will be _slightly_ more descriptive in Chapter 2, fair warning.

Svlad had been in Blackwing for six years when they’d forced his ears and tail off of him.

It had been Priest - because _of course it was_ \- and it had been _horrible_ , but the worst part had been afterwards, when they’d realized that without his ears or tail, Svlad was just _Svlad_ , and the hunches didn’t come anymore.

It had enraged Director Wilson, and Blackwing’s medical staff had hastily arranged for them to be reattached, and it had hurt so much when Svlad had come to that he’d been bedridden for months.

They’d thought it would make him stronger, on account of losing his ‘innocence’ and thus making him an adult, but it had only added to the long list of traumatic events that Blackwing had put him through instead.

To make matters worse, the surgery had meant that Svlad could never lose his ears or tail ever again, not without the same painful procedure, so that had been added to the list of _variables_ in the experiments that Svlad could participate in.

Most of them had involved Priest, but some included other Blackwing agents, too.

\---

Todd didn’t have his ears or tail anymore when Dirk met him during the Patrick Spring case, which wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

Most people lost them by the age of eighteen, anyway - some even earlier, in fact - but Dirk couldn’t help but feel _something_ about this fact, especially when he eventually found out that Todd had his name - _their name_ \- etched into the firm skin of his thigh in bold, cursive font.

It had been a complete accident that Dirk had even seen it.

The Universe had been quiet for a month after everything that had happened with Wendimoor and Francis, and he, Todd and Farah had used that chance to settle all the furniture and the stationery and all the legal _things_ involved in setting up a legitimate detective agency.

(Or, well, Todd had done most of the heavy-lifting and the arranging and the ordering of office supplies while Farah had dealt with all the proper paperwork, and Dirk had been assigned official snack-fetcher - snack-gatherer? Snack- _provider_? Dirk wasn’t sure what the right term for such a task was, really - because everyone had unanimously agreed that that was the safest job for him after he’d accidentally dropped a - or _several_ , if you asked Todd, although Dirk vehemently denied this - shelf up the stairs and had nearly crushed his feet.)

They were always extremely worn out at the end of every day, and had often simply given up on going back to their individual homes and just crashed at Todd’s apartment at the Ridgely.

It had become such a comfortable routine that they’d done the same thing on the last day of the month, despite the fact that everything had already been settled and none of them had really done much that morning and afternoon besides toasting to the official opening of the agency and celebrating by calling everyone in their combined contacts list that they were _finally_ ready to take on new cases.

It was ten pm when Farah had collapsed into the guest bedroom, and Todd had been taking a shower while Dirk had been sitting on the couch in the living room and scrolling through a large number of congratulatory photos from Amanda and the Rowdies - featuring various ridiculous poses and captions - when Dirk had vaguely heard Todd’s bedroom door open, followed by his familiar footsteps echoing down the hall.

Dirk had looked up absently and over the back of the couch, freezing when he’d seen Todd strolling casually into the kitchen, clad in nothing but a towel hanging low around his hips. He’d watched, slack-jawed, as Todd opened the fridge and bent over to take something from inside it, and when he’d straightened back up, his towel had slipped and fallen to pool around his feet.

With a curse, Todd had hastily bent down to pick it up with one hand, his other hand clutching at a beer bottle, and that was when Dirk’s eyes had widened as he’d seen it, clear as day.

On the side of Todd’s right thigh, just below the line of his waist, had been what looked like a tattoo, and it was so familiar that Dirk was sure what it was, even though Todd had been quick to cover himself back up with his towel.

 **Hopeless**.

It was an exact match of Dirk’s, stretched across his back, between his shoulder blades, and Dirk had never hated Blackwing more than he had in that moment of discovery.

That had been almost two weeks ago.

He hadn’t spoken to Todd about it.

He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was too scared to.

Todd had never mentioned having a soulmark, and Dirk had never asked. Not everyone had one, and with what Blackwing had done to Dirk, Dirk had never been interested in such matters, because he never wanted to find his own soulmate. Never mind the fact that whoever was unfortunate enough to be bound to Dirk would be forced to have to deal with the Universe’s demands, but Dirk firmly believed that his- _inadequacies_ weren’t something anyone would be willing to put up with, even someone he was born to be with.

It was a cruel twist of fate that his soulmate turned out to be _Todd_.

Todd was his _best friend_ , and even with everything that they’d gone through together, Dirk had never told Todd in detail about everything that Blackwing had done to him - to his ears and his tail - and he didn’t know how Todd would react if he did.

What if Todd found him disgusting?

Losing his best friend was one thing; Dirk didn’t think he could deal with his soulmate outright rejecting him.

He’d kept his discovery to himself, and even though he found himself staring at Todd’s leg sometimes whenever Todd wasn’t looking, everything went on as normal.

Everything was _fine_.

\---

Everything was _not_ fine.

Three weeks after they officially opened the agency’s doors to the public, a woman had hesitantly walked in and begged them to help with an alien infestation in the sewers that ran along the sidewalk right outside her home.

It had been _awful_.

They’d taken the case, of course - because Dirk had been getting antsy with the whole soulmate-discovery and the fact that he hadn’t had a hunch in an unusually long while - and while there hadn’t seemed to be much mystery in it, at the beginning, it had eventually spiralled _massively_ out of control.

As it turned out, the aliens in the sewers could breed like rabbits, which was exactly what they had done while Dirk and his friends were investigating ways to eradicate them without involving any touching. Because, yeah, apparently touching them resulted in nasty infections that eventually led to a very painful death. Had he forgotten to mention that?

They’d figured that out quickly enough on the first day, when one of the aliens had ventured past Todd’s very vigilant watch from the porch of their client’s house - he might’ve dozed off for a _second_ , which wasn’t his fault because he hadn’t been getting proper sleep recently due to an increase in his attacks, which he attributed to the approach of winter and the freezing winds that accompanied it - and had attacked their client’s dog.

Todd had realized too late that the poor thing’s growling and loud barking had been because of an alien and not indigestion like their client had assured him, and by then, it had already started to deteriorate rapidly, right before Todd’s eyes when he’d gone to check on it. According to him, it had been the most gruesome sight he’d ever witnessed, in real life or even in movies, in fact.

Dirk had then, the next day, insisted on going to the aquarium in town, which, okay, had sounded completely ridiculous at the time, but had turned out to be where they’d encountered the weirdest employee in the history of weird employees - Farah had tried to argue that Dirk was technically weirder, but seeing as the agency was named after _him_ , he didn’t count as an employee, so _hah_ \- that they’d ended up tailing. The employee had unknowingly led them to a central sewage system near the aquarium, where they’d discovered that he’d been breeding the aliens with different species of marine animals from the aquarium.

(Which, come to think of, meant that the aliens weren’t aliens after all. They were _hybrids_ , technically, but since they were a uniquely new species that hadn’t evolved naturally from the time of dinosaurs or the Big Bang or whatnot, then, _technically_ , that meant they _were_ aliens, no matter what Todd said about how that wasn’t really what aliens meant or how that sort of thing worked, because Todd wasn’t a _scientist_ , was he, even though he was smart in his own right.

But he digressed.)

They’d retreated strategically - but not before causing enough chaos and destruction that their culprit’s lair had been mostly destroyed - back to the agency, where Farah had started mapping out the sewer system on their brand new whiteboard. They’d narrowed down the line that led to their client’s house, and that was when the Rowdies had come, led by Amanda.

Amanda had pulled Todd aside to talk to in private, which had been full of drama, or so Dirk assumed, because when they’d returned the next morning, the two of them had been red-eyed, red-faced and Amanda was no longer looking at Todd like he’d been lying to her about his pararibulitis for the better part of their adult life - which, to be fair, he _had_ \- and Todd no longer looked like he was ready to throw himself in front of a truck just for a chance to have Amanda not look at him like that anymore.

In the meantime, the Rowdies had spent the night Amanda-less by terrorizing Dirk. At the beginning, anyway. After an hour of scaring him shitless by destroying a whole bunch of stuff in his living room at the Ridgely, they’d had a heart-to-heart which had mostly terrified Dirk, regardless.

In fact, the heart-to-heart had been even worse, because Martin had brought up his ears and tail.

“Ain’t natural,” Martin had said, standing in the middle of the living room.

He’d looked more frightening than Dirk had ever remembered seeing him, with the destroyed pieces of furniture around him and the other three Rowdies still smashing stuff and screaming unintelligibly in the background.

Dirk had been standing a few feet away from Martin, frozen stiff, staring at him with wide-eyes.

Martin had nodded at him, his eyes locking on the ears that were flattened on top of Dirk’s head in fear.

“But we’ve seen worse,” Martin had continued, and Cross had stopped over his shoulder, then, looking at Dirk, too.

“Mine got cut off,” he’d hissed, making a face that had probably been meant to be sympathetic. “No sex, neither! Just straight up cut through, with a saw!”

“Blackwing’s crazy!” Vogel had shouted behind them, nodding frantically.

Dirk had looked at each of them in turn, stunned and afraid, unsure of what had been happening.

“They’re just a physical manifestation of every individual’s innocence!” Gripps had piped in, throwing a pillow into the air that had been shredded to the point that its stuffing had flown everywhere as it dropped back to the ground. “But losing them don’t make you guilty of anything, either!”

“I don’t-” Dirk had stammered out when they’d gone silent, very suddenly, all of them staring at him. “I- why are you telling me this?”

Martin had smirked, finally looking away from him to look up at the ceiling.

“You and drummer girl’s bro,” he’d said in a gravelly huff. “Can smell it from miles off, boy.”

Dirk had squeaked, then, indignation overcoming his terror of what had been happening. “ _Smell_?” he’d said loudly. “Wh- I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“You ain’t never lost your innocence,” Martin had snapped, head dropping until he was staring at Dirk again. “You weren’t ever ready, boy, but we all know you are, now.”

Dirk had been stunned by the vehemence with which Martin had said that, and he hadn’t been able to do anything else but stare back at him, lower lip quivering.

“You got nothin’ to be scared of,” Cross had added, his face changing again, this time into disappointment. “Fuck it! Fuck Blackwing!”

“Get on with the sex-doing!” Vogel had piped in, whooping excitedly. “It’s really freaking awesome! Like- like happy stars in your eyes!”

“We’re free now,” Martin had said lowly, smirking again. “Free to be free.”

That had been the end of that conversation, finishing as abruptly as it had started, and Dirk had escaped into his room, where he’d locked the door and curled up in bed, under the covers. He hadn’t been completely sure of what the Rowdies had been trying to tell him, but he’d had the feeling that they’d meant him to tell Todd about their shared name; to risk it all and expect that it wouldn’t end badly.

He’d fallen asleep with his confused thoughts and the muffled sounds of the Rowdies doing whatever Rowdy things they usually did, and the next morning, Todd had come back with Amanda and Farah’s text to meet her at the client’s house.

That was when everything had gone to hell.

They’d found the sewers _crawling_ with the alien-hybrid things and had hastily sealed the sewer’s cover shut with Mona’s help as a welding-fire-machine-thing - and had gone to the aquarium to find out more about the weird employee.

 _Things_ had happened, then, and after a lot of fighting and running and getting shot at and Todd almost dying protecting Dirk, they’d finally found a way to kill all of the alien-hybrid things with the reluctant help of the culprit, and they’d received three pans of freshly-baked apple pies from their client as thanks for their services.

In all the commotion and complications, Dirk had completely forgotten about Todd being his soulmate, or even the conversation he’d had with the Rowdy 3.

The thought hadn’t even passed his mind once, his mind occupied instead by the fact that Todd had put himself in harm’s way to keep _him_ safe earlier that day, when the alien-hybrid things had tried to eat him.

Todd had almost _died_ , for real, and as Dirk helped Todd limp into his apartment at the end of the day, he’d frozen, standing stiffly in front of the sofa where Todd had collapsed into tiredly, the seriousness of what had almost happened to Todd finally sinking in on him completely.

“Dirk?” Todd said with a concerned frown. “You okay?”

Dirk stared down at Todd, at the worried lines of his face, the tired bags under his eyes, the beautiful, downward curve of his lips that was put there because Dirk was too weird to deal with his feelings like a proper adult.

“Dirk, is it a hunch?” Todd asked, now looking more upset. He reached out a hand and grabbed one of Dirk’s, squeezing comfortingly. “Come on, Dirk, talk to me. You’re freaking me out, man.”

“I’ve had sex before,” Dirk blurted out, his eyes widening in mortification the second the words had left his lips, and he pulled his hand out of Todd’s to clamp it over his mouth.

Todd’s eyes widened, too, and his mouth dropped open as he gaped at Dirk.

Dirk made a helpless, choked sound and tore his hand off his mouth to apologize, but what came out instead was a rushed, “I’ve had sex so many times, I’d lost count!”

“What?” Todd said in a lost, confused tone.

Dirk shook his head, groaning, covering his whole face with his hands. “That came out very, _very_ wrong,” he moaned.

“Dirk, what’s going on?” Todd asked, and Dirk jerked back when he felt hands on his arms, but Todd held fast, and Dirk didn’t get anywhere. “Stop, come on, don’t- you can’t just drop a bomb like that and expect me to not ask what the fuck is going on?”

Dirk spread his fingers and peeked between them into Todd’s concerned gaze and he made another helpless, groaning sound, tinged with frustration.

“Dirk, just, breathe, okay?” Todd said, and Dirk found himself being pulled down and guided onto the sofa until he was sitting on it, Todd close by his side. “Take deep breaths and just- just try not to freak out.”

Dirk tried, inhaling deeply, his hands still plastered over his face, and by the fourth inhale, he _did_ start feeling less mortified. Except, then he realized exactly _what_ he’d said to Todd, and Dirk didn’t feel mortified so much as his throat closed up and his eyes started getting wetter and fragments of his past experiences - with Blackwing, with Mr. Priest, with random faces of random men and women that he hadn’t even gotten to learn the names of - started flitting through his mind, and Dirk choked on a sob that tried to escape.

“Dirk,” he heard Todd say helplessly, and then Todd was gathering him into his arms, and Dirk dropped his hands to wrap his own arms around Todd’s waist as he buried his face into Todd’s chest, the tears spilling over before he could stop them.

Todd didn’t say anything else, rubbing circles on Dirk’s back as Dirk sobbed quietly into his t-shirt, patiently waiting for the storm to pass.

Eventually, Dirk’s eyes dried out, and all Dirk had left was a blocked nose and the vague, damp shape of his face left on Todd’s chest. He pulled away, then, and Todd squeezed him for a moment before letting go of him.

They both leaned back into the sofa, shoulder-to-shoulder, and stared ahead of them, silent.

“I’m sorry,” Dirk said after a while.

Todd placed his hand over Dirk’s on the sofa, between their thighs, and Dirk turned his hand over so that their fingers could twine together, and it felt _right_.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Todd said, in that unusually gentle voice that he reserved only for Dirk during moments when Blackwing’s effects on him showed themselves, usually in the form of a breakdown.

Like earlier.

“I’ve had sex before,” Dirk said in an emotionless voice, repeating his earlier words.

“You don’t have to talk about it now, Dirk,” Todd interrupted him, squeezing his hand.

“I want to,” Dirk said quickly, swallowing and squeezing back. “I- I’ve _got_ to.”

A beat passed, and then Todd said, “Okay, Dirk.”

Dirk swallowed again, a nervous flutter cramping his stomach.

Closing his eyes, he said, shakily, “Whe- when I was sixteen, Blackwing tried to _make_ me into an adult, because they thought it would- it would make my hunches better. So they sent in Mr. Priest.”

Todd’s hand squeezed further, to the point of pain, and Dirk made a sound before Todd hastily loosened up.

“Sorry,” Dirk heard him mutter, and Dirk shook his head wordlessly.

“It didn’t work,” Dirk continued, hushed and miserable. “It made the hunches stop completely, so they tried to- they _fixed_ it. They- it was a proper procedure, but it’s not- it’s permanent.”

Dirk’s throat clenched shut, and he couldn’t- he was shaking, he realized vaguely, and he forced himself to stop, tensing up bodily.

“Dirk, you’re not ready to talk about it,” Todd said.

Dirk shook his head again, opening his eyes and forcing himself to look at Todd. Todd’s face was pinched, angry and worried all at once, and Dirk felt better for it; at least he wasn’t _disgusted_ , like he’d feared.

“I’ve never told anyone,” Dirk said, his eyes watering again. “I- you deserve to know, Todd.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Dirk,” Todd says immediately, scowling. “If you’re not ready to talk, then don’t. But when you _are_ , then I’m here for you.”

His assurance brought an instinctive smile onto Dirk’s face, small but _there_. Just like Todd, come to think of it, and Dirk let out a choked laugh at the comparison. Todd smiled back, confused but uncertain at Dirk’s reaction.

“You’re my soulmate,” Dirk said in a single breath, hastily adding, before Todd could say anything, “and I understand if you don’t want that kind of a relationship with me, Todd, but you deserved to know, at least, because I don’t want to lie to you about _anything_ , not ever again, even if it’s strategic not-truthing.”

Todd’s eyes widened, his jaw dropping again like earlier, and Dirk, having finally used up the last of his courage, pulled his hand out of Todd’s and stood up abruptly.

“I’ll leave now,” he said. “You- you should put some ice on the bruising, or it’ll just get worse. I’ll see you in the morning, at the agency,” he continued nervously as he backed away clumsily, towards the front door. “That is, if you _want_ to, of course, you don’t _have_ to if you’re still not feeling up to it. I won’t force you, after all, I mean, technically, I’m your _boss_ , so I _could_ , but then I _won’t_ -”

“Dirk, wait,” Todd said, jumping to his feet and following after him, his face looking almost as panicked as Dirk was feeling. “Don’t go-”

“Good night, Todd!” Dirk interrupted him, turning and very nearly running towards the door.

“Dirk!” Todd shouted after him, and Dirk had pulled the door open and was about to escape out into the hallway when he heard a crash from the living room and he froze before rushing back inside.

Todd was groaning in pain, flat on the floor, the lamp on the end table next to the sofa lying broken on the ground next to him, and Dirk quickly moved to his side, bending down and helping him up.

“Are you alright?” he asked frantically, checking Todd over.

“Fine,” Todd grunted, wincing as he leaned against Dirk for support. “Just tripped over the wire.”

It sounded like something Dirk would do, and Dirk scoffed exasperatedly as he helped Todd back onto the sofa. Todd sank into it with a tired sigh, and Dirk was about to straighten back to his feet and continue on his way back to his own apartment when Todd caught his arm and gave him a pleading look.

“Don’t go, Dirk,” he said quietly, but he loosened his grip and Dirk knew that Todd wouldn’t stop him if he really wanted to leave.

Dirk hesitated for a moment.

One the one hand, half of him never wanted to ever leave Todd’s side, anyway; in fact, he’d considered asking Todd if he was okay with Dirk moving in with him since they were best friends now and going back to his empty apartment every day was never something he’d looked forward to, no matter how many times he’d done it already. But on the other hand, Dirk was deathly afraid of what Todd would say about what Dirk had just told him if he stayed.

What if Todd really did reject him as a soulmate?

Todd might not be disgusted with him, but that was because Todd was his _best friend_. Being his soulmate was a whole other can of worms, and Dirk knew that he wouldn’t even blame him if Todd decided that he didn’t want to play that role in Dirk’s life.

Todd deserved so much better.

“Hey,” Todd said suddenly, snapping Dirk out of his internal turmoil. “Stop thinking and just stay, okay?”

Dirk stared at Todd’s face, the open acceptance and the underlying concern that was always there whenever Dirk behaved weirder than usual, and Dirk inhaled deeply before he nodded, once, and fell onto the sofa, next to Todd.

“Thank you,” Todd said, shifting until their shoulders are touching. “For staying. And, you know. Telling me all that.”

“You’re welcome,” Dirk said quietly, glancing sideways at Todd nervously.

Dirk tensed up when Todd leaned his head against his shoulder, but nothing earth-shattering happened, and he relaxed after a moment.

“I knew,” Todd said after what felt like an eternity of silence.

Dirk looked down at the top of Todd’s head, frowning in confusion. Todd tilted his head to look up at him.

“I knew I was your soulmate,” he confessed, a guilty look settling on his features. “But after what happened with Blackwing, I didn’t- I saw your name, on your back, a few months ago. But I saw your scars, too, Dirk. I didn’t- I didn’t want to be unfair to you. I wanted you to have a choice in who you wanted to be with, and I didn’t think you’d be able to have that if you knew I was your soulmate. You deserve better, Dirk.”

Dirk’s breath caught in his throat at Todd’s admission, and his mind went blank.

 _Todd knew_.

Todd _knew_ and he’d kept it to himself. For _months_.

Dirk had known for less than a week, and he’d already been going out of his mind, keeping that secret to himself, and now-

For _his_ sake, Todd had kept it to himself for Dirk’s sake, and Dirk couldn’t- he couldn’t believe how _lucky_ he was, that Todd had been willing to lose his soulmate because he’d thought Dirk _wouldn’t want him_ , that Dirk _deserved better than him_.

“I thought you were _smart_ , Todd,” Dirk said.

Todd’s face contorted with confusion, and Dirk couldn’t help it; he burst out laughing, his whole body shaking with it and no small amount of relief. It escalated, and he found that he couldn’t stop, and eventually, Todd joined in, helplessly, until they were both shaking so hard that it felt like the sofa would shake right through the floor under them.

“Amanda told me we were hopeless idiots,” Todd said, when their laughter finally died down and they’d both ended up lying on the sofa together, Todd half on top of Dirk, his arms wrapped around Dirk’s waist.

Dirk had his own hands on Todd’s back and head, his fingers carding through his short, soft strands.

“ _You’re_ a hopeless idiot,” Dirk said, scoffing. “If you’d just _told_ me, we wouldn’t even be here right now.”

Todd craned his neck to shoot him an annoyed look, but it was fond and there was no heat behind his eyes besides the warmth of his affection, and Dirk felt the nervous fluttering again in his stomach, except, it felt _good_ this time. Then Todd smiled, and it was sly, bordering on devious, and Dirk’s eyes widened when he felt Todd’s hands shifting until they were under his shirt, his skin unbearably hot against the small of Dirk’s back, just above the waistband of his trousers.

“I don’t know, it kinda feels nice being here,” Todd said casually.

“You cheeky little monster,” Dirk said, marvelling at Todd’s audacity, and Todd’s smile turned into a grin.

“Cheeky, huh?” he said, and the fluttering became a whole swarm of rabid butterflies as Todd leaned his head back against Dirk’s chest with a contented sigh. “I like the sound of that.”

Dirk couldn’t help but agree, except, he knew Todd would be simply insufferable if he knew, so he scoffed again.

“Well, don’t get used to it, yet,” he said haughtily. “You’ll have to do a lot of wooing to get anywhere near _this_.”

Todd huffed out a short, amused laugh, but Dirk isn’t done quite yet.

“I demand to be courted,” he sniffed, turning his nose up. “That includes candle-lit dinners, a dozen roses _at least_ , chocolates every Tuesday, door-opening, midnight serenades and-”

He stopped speaking abruptly when Todd pushed off of him and looked up, gazing into Dirk’s eyes with a small, happy smile on his face.

“Midnight serenades might be tricky,” he said. “Neighbours are gonna complain. But all the rest?”

Todd leaned forward, and Dirk’s eyes widened comically when Todd’s lips meet his, brief and chaste.

“I’ll double it all, Dirk,” Todd said quietly as he pulled away. “You’ll get fat with all the dinners we’ll have, you’ll get sick of the smell of all the roses I’ll bring you, you’ll get cavities with all the chocolates I’ll give you, and there’ll never be a door that’ll ever be closed to you.”

For the first time in a while, Dirk found himself at a loss for words, and Todd smiled dopily at him.

“I might be a hopeless idiot, but I’m _your_ hopeless idiot now, Dirk,” he said, and Dirk didn’t even think twice before he grabbed Todd’s face and pulled him into another kiss.

\---

One week later, the agency was flooded with red roses, dozens upon dozens of them, all fully-bloomed and littered everywhere to the point that the floor couldn’t even be seen.

In fact, their desks were hidden under them, too, and that was where Farah finally drew the line and kicked Dirk and Todd out of the agency.

“And don’t come back until you guys are married!” she’d shouted irritably as she slammed the door on them. “And roses do not qualify as entertainment expenses!”

“Maybe you should’ve gotten some daisies, too, for Farah,” Dirk had said to Todd as they stood on the stoop of the agency, staring sadly at the closed - and locked - door.

“Getting married doesn’t sound too bad, actually,” Todd said, turning to look up at Dirk.

Dirk turned to look back at him, stunned, and Todd grinned brightly.

“Race you to the car,” he said before turning on his heels and darting off.

Dirk was left standing there, staring dumbfoundedly at the spot Todd had just been in, before he realized he’d been left behind and quickly ran after his errant boyfriend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Svlad lost his ears and Dirk got them back ( _metaphorically_ , although it was quite literal to begin with).

Svlad woke up not feeling anything that day.

It was… _odd_ , to say the least.

Usually, he would wake up feeling _something_.

Miserable, unhappy, wistful for the freedom he was sure he would never have, ever again. A twisted combination of all that, maybe, if the Universe was feeling particularly unhelpful.

Svlad had felt _empty_ , instead, like- like- like someone had carved a _hole_ right through his chest where his heart was supposed to be, and it was unfamiliar and unusual, and he knew he should’ve been more wary about it, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to care. He’d simply turned over onto his side in bed and curled up into himself, staring balefully at the wall, his tail draping over his waist and wrapping round him in a poor substitute for a hug.

He didn’t have testing, since no one had come to retrieve him, and he wanted to feel glad about that, except, well, he wasn’t up to feeling much of anything at all.

And then, suddenly, all of a sudden, the door to his room opened, and when Svlad lifted his head slowly to see who was entering, his whole body went cold, his blood freezing over in his veins - and all of a sudden, the emptiness was replaced by terror and apprehension.

“How’ve you been, Svlad?” Priest asked as he strolled casually into Dirk’s room, looking around the small space like as if anything had changed in the last two months since he’d come to- to _visit_.

Svlad pushed himself up to his elbows and sat up, scooting backwards on his bed until he was nearly plastered over the wall the bed was pushed up against.

“Good, sir,” Svlad said quietly, carefully, trying not to let his voice shake with how afraid he was.

He wished he was feeling empty again, but then he got the itching feeling that the emptiness had been something to do with Priest.

It was a terrifying thought.

It had been ages since Priest had touched him, had hurt him, had had any reason to do so - Svlad had been _good_ , he’d been _trying_ , he’d been _doing everything he could to not misbehave_ \- and he had no idea why Priest would come now, today, of all days.

What had Svlad done this time?

He didn’t have an answer to that, and it made his throat close up until breathing became an arduous task.

“We’ve got a new test today,” Priest explained as he stopped by Svlad’s bed and sat down on the side heavily.

Svlad was confused to notice that Priest wasn’t looking at him. It was weird.

Priest was _always_ looking at Svlad, his blue eyes dark and heavy and promising pain and all sorts of nasty things, but he wasn’t today. He was staring down at the floor, and Svlad’s apprehension grew as he saw Priest’s hands gripping onto the bed tightly, like he was trying hard to keep himself calm.

Svlad had seen Priest lose his temper only _once_ ; for all of Priest’s cruelty, he had an enviable well of infinite patience.

(It was one of the reasons Svlad still _pushed_ sometimes, even when he knew he shouldn’t - _especially_ when he knew he shouldn’t; because Priest could hurt him and torture him and do everything under the sun to him, but Priest would never _break_ him. Svlad had no control over anything Blackwing did, but he still had the freedom to be _himself_ , and no amount of Blackwing conditioning would ever take that away from him.

Sometimes, he wondered if Priest knew this, if maybe deep down inside, Priest could see the connections like Svlad did, and that was why Priest let him get away with his little rebellions - for the most part. But then the pain would come, and the wondering would cease, and all Svlad knew was that one day, he would be free of Blackwing, and he _will never forgive_.)

His throat tightened further as he tried to think of what could possibly piss off Priest so much, and none of the answers he could come up with made him any less frightened.

“Take off your clothes, boy,” Priest said, his voice low and gravelly, and Svlad jumped in surprise, instinctively grabbing at the collar of his jumpsuit and staring wide-eyed at the man.

Svlad didn’t move, and Priest clicked his tongue annoyedly, and then he finally turned and looked over at Svlad.

His gaze sent a cold shiver running down Svlad’s spine, furious and terrible all at once, and then Svlad found himself being manhandled until he was lying flat on his back in the middle of his bed. He struggled instinctively, blindly flailing and thrashing as Priest unzipped his jumpsuit, and Svlad cried out when his arms got caught in the sleeves as Priest roughly pulled the outfit down his body.

“Stop!” he yelled, tears gathering in his eyes, a million and one thoughts flying through his mind. “Stop, please, Mr. Priest! What’re you doing!”

Priest had never taken his clothes off.

No one had ever seen Svlad naked, at least not in physical proximity to him, and the implications weren’t lost on Svlad.

He knew exactly what the new experiment was and _he didn’t want it_.

Priest managed to get the jumpsuit completely off of him, leaving Svlad only in his briefs and his white undershirt, and as Priest pulled off of him to toss the jumpsuit away, Svlad took the chance to turn over and scramble off the side of the bed, to the furthest corner away from Priest, and he pressed his back into it, cowering.

There was nowhere to run, but Svlad wasn’t going to give up his ears and his tail without at least an explanation.

“Why are you doing this,” he sobbed, rubbing furiously at his cheeks, glaring at Priest through the blur of tears still gathering in his eyes. “It’s not _right_ , haven’t you done _enough_!”

He froze when Priest rose from the bed and stood facing him, only a few feet away.

“It only hurts if you fight me, Svlad,” he heard Priest say, low and monotonous.

It was the first time Svlad had ever heard him _not_ enjoying something that would hurt Svlad, and Svlad flinched further against the wall.

“You don’t want to, either,” he reasoned, pleadingly. “You- _please_ , Mr. Priest.” Sobbing helplessly, he moaned, “I have a _soulmark_.”

“I’m not leavin’ this room without your ears and your tail,” Priest said sharply, and Svlad sobbed harder.

“I have a soulmark,” he repeated desperately, shaking his head, wrapping his thin arms around himself.

“Then you better pray your soulmate ain’t a stickler for tradition,” Priest scoffed, moving towards him, and Svlad didn’t even have time to blink before he was being grabbed and dragged back towards his bed.

He struggled, still, but only weakly, knowing that what was coming was inevitable, and as Priest divested him of the last of his clothing and Svlad stared up at the ceiling with tired, red-rimmed eyes, he begged silently for the Universe to intervene; to save him, to help him, finally, this _one time_ , please.

(The Universe didn’t. Of course.

Priest was coldly mechanical about it, at least.

It still hurt, but there was no mockery, no unnecessary touching, and most importantly, he didn’t force Svlad to enjoy it.

Priest had never been so kind before.

Svlad would learn later that he never would be again, either.)

\---

Svlad felt even emptier the day after.

He felt _naked_ , too, even after he’d been allowed to shower and change into clean clothes.

He felt naked without his ears pressing down against his head, without his tail curling around him like usual, and it was _awful_. Walking hurt, moving hurt; everything hurt, and Svlad felt like his head was thick and swollen with all the pain and the emptiness threatening to overwhelm his heart.

He failed his next test, too, even worse than usual, and after the customary telling off, he was sent back to his room, where he’d fallen into exhausted sleep after hours of staring sightlessly up at the ceiling.

He failed every other test after that.

He hadn’t even tried, on any of them, which he usually would, and the emptiness made him _not care_. Made him not _want_ to care.

He wanted to just lie on his bed and just- just- _die_ , maybe, or waste away to nothing.

He _already_ felt like nothing.

Blackwing used to give him random case reports, actual police things and unsolved crimes that had somehow gotten under the purview of the CIA, and he’d gotten hunches on them. Very rarely, but they had been _something_. They had been enough to convince Blackwing that Svlad was _psychic_.

(He wasn’t, though. He never had been. Svlad wasn’t _psychic_. He was _something_ , but it wasn’t anything Blackwing could ever understand. Even _Svlad_ didn’t understand.)

After- after what had happened, even the reports didn’t give Svlad any feelings.

When the scientists and the testers asked, Svlad had simply told them how he’d felt; _empty_.

There were no hunches, no lucky guesses; Svlad didn’t even _hurt_ , anymore, eventually.

Even weeks later, when Priest came back to punish him for his failures - about time, too, because he usually came in if Svlad failed even _two_ tests in a row - and _lack of cooperation_ , Svlad had faced it through a haze of detachment that had almost - just _almost_ \- scared him. It hadn’t hurt, because he hadn’t been _present_ to feel it hurt.

He’d never felt anything like it before, the floaty, untouchable feeling of _numbness_ , and it scared him - made him think he could never _feel_ anything, ever again.

They stopped testing him, after that, and Svlad didn’t know how much time had passed until he was brought to the medical wing and briefly told that he would be going through surgery. They warned him that it would hurt - which was surprisingly kind of them; to be giving him any sort of warning at all - but that it would make him feel better, in the long run.

Svlad hadn’t cared, and he’d told them as much.

That changed, of course, when he woke up almost a whole day later and the emptiness was gone, replaced by paralysing, mind-numbing pain.

\---

Years later, Svlad escaped Blackwing and ended up under the wing of a lonely old lady with a soft spot for lost strays.

She was British, from a place called Sheffield that Svlad had never heard of before, and she was _shady_. For some reason, Svlad had felt like he could trust her, and he’d told her about Blackwing, about his experiments and the testing and his stupid hunches, and even about his- about his ears and tail. The old lady had then helped him gain a new identity; a birth certificate, a passport, even a social security number.

She gave him a new _life_ , and when Svlad had asked _why_ , she’d simply told him that he reminded her of her dead son.

Afterwards, she’d gone back to her own home, back in Sheffield, and Svlad- or, well, _Dirk_ , then, according to his passport, had wandered around aimlessly.

It was funny. He’d always wanted freedom, but now that he had it, he had no idea what to do with it.

He’d gotten so used to just waiting for test after test, he’d forgotten that there was anything else in life besides them.

It wasn’t too long, though, until he got his first _hunch_ since leaving Blackwing, and then there wasn’t much time to be wandering anymore. He was pulled into one bizarre event after another, and any time he found someone he thought could possibly be a _friend_ along the way, something would happen to chase them off, until ~~Svlad~~ Dirk just stopped _hoping_ they would stay and started _expecting_ them all to leave.

Still, the hunches kept coming, and ~~Svlad~~ Dirk realized that, while they weren’t at all useful to him, they certainly helped the people he encountered, in some way or another. And that had felt _good_. He’d felt _useful_ , like he finally had a _purpose_ , like all the awful things Blackwing had put him through hadn’t been for nothing, hadn’t been for no reason after all, and ~~Svlad~~ Dirk knew that he never wanted the hunches to stop.

(Without the hunches and the cases and the people-helping to distract him, Svlad had only nightmares and terrible memories to keep him company and that- that wasn’t _good_ , definitely.)

Someone asked him if he was a detective, once, and ~~Svlad~~ Dirk had figured, _whyever not_.

 _Holistic_ hadn’t been something he’d thought of; it just sort of made sense, somehow. The one consistent thing about his hunches that he’d also learnt was that they all seemed to be _connected_ to each other, and ~~Svlad~~ Dirk tried not to think too much about it.

Eventually, he’d ended up in Cambridge, somehow. Even _he_ didn’t know how, or why, but it had to do with a sofa stuck in the stairwell of a dorm there, which had quickly escalated into a murder mystery and something of a haunting.

He spent two years there, even after the case was solved, somehow having ended up enrolled as a student, and he’d started attending classes.

He’d felt so _normal_ as he did. Despite his notoriety for being involved in the Sofa Case, other students found him _interesting_ , which attracted them to him instead of repelling them like he’d expected. He’d _almost_ made friends there.

And then they’d started asking him for exam questions, and he’d crumpled; they were only nice to him to _use_ him, and while it was better than nothing, he’d eventually gotten arrested for it, even though he’d had no idea what he’d been doing was illegal. He’d then gotten expelled, and even deported back to the US after spending 6 months in jail.

(The jail experience hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared; he’d met a menagerie of colourful characters, and after solving a mystery about a toilet bowl that had a black hole in it, they’d promised their services to him, if he ever needed help in the outside world. They were actually better friends than the Cambridge students ever had been, actually. ~~Svlad~~ Dirk found the irony depressingly amusing.)

After being deported back to the US, ~~Svlad~~ Dirk started wandering again.

He solved more cases, made and lost more friends - got used to calling and thinking of himself as Dirk Gently instead of _Svlad Cjelli_ \- and then one day, he got a call from Patrick Spring, and met his future self.

And then; well.

Then he met _Todd_ , and the rest- the rest didn’t matter, did it?

He had a case to solve, and this time, his assistant would be his _best friend_ , according to, well, to _him_ , and Dirk wasn’t going to fuck that up.

He was going to solve the _heck_ out of the mystery of Patrick Spring’s murder, and impress his new best assist-friend in the process, even if it killed him.

(It didn’t kill him, but he _did_ get stabbed. _Twice_.

Still.

Todd _came back_ , and Dirk- Dirk was just too _glad_ to be mad at the Universe.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiii.
> 
> 1- Traditionally, those with soulmarks would keep their 'innocence' (aka, their ears and tail) until they meet their soulmate. _Traditionally_ , but it's really an outdated practice. Priest just said that to be an asshole.
> 
> 2- Priest wasn't being nice, btw, he just doesn't like rape, or raping children. Still a bastard, since he did it, anyway.
> 
> 3- I only realized Riggins got left out of the fic after I finished, and then I was just, meh. xD Let's pretend he was there the whole time, thank you.


End file.
